We Ride Upon Sticks: A Novel (Alex Award Winner) (Vintage Contemporaries)

was taking a chance on getting a used boon but was in perfect condition!! can barely see any use of any kind on/in it.

WE RIDE UPON STICKS is a reference to a field hockey team from Danvers, Massachusetts, once known as Salem City of Salem Witchcraft trials fame.The Danvers Falcons are really tired of losing. They're at a hockey camp losing their first scrimmage in embarrassing fashion when their goalie, Mel Boucher, starts spouting witchy incantations. By the next scrimmage rolls around she has recruited some of her fellow players and they beat a highly ranked team.The more they win, the more girls sign on until the whole team is “enchanted”.Some parts of the book are a bit annoying. One of the captains, Jen Fiorenza, has really big hair. It's the eighties, and most of the girls do. Author Quan Barry refers to the crown of her head as “The Claw” and treats it as if it had a mind of its own. I can't imagine what that might look like. Mel Boucher also has a mole that takes on a life of its own. Enough already.When they are confronted with a tie game, the girls get worried that they need more than just chants. If good tidings lead to more good deeds, would it be too farfetched to argue that witchcraft demands bad behavior? They go a little overboard; one girl even accuses a male coach of diddling one of the girls. Another, “Little Smitty” spray paints the Danvers trophy case and blames it on a future opponent. It appears to work, all the way to “states” as they call it in field hockey heaven.There are other oddities on the Danvers Falcons. There's a Girl Cory and a Boy Cory. Even the girls think Boy Cory may have problems with his sexual identity. Barry goes a bit overboard in respect to sexual aberrations; the school bully is closeted; one of the moms is having a lesbian affair. During a reunion one of he daughters claims there are seventeen different sexual orientations.I always like an epilogue; the one in the book happens thirty years after the trip to states, and we find out if the girls won or lost the championship game. The ending to the game is a bit hard to believe.One thing Barry does really well is capture the rapport on a girls' sports team. It's sometimes goofy and sometimes funny and mostly always daunting. She should know; according to the acknowledgments, this is a fictional account of her own 1989 field hockey team.

When I first started this book I did not like it. It rushes at you and it's not clear what's going on. But I'm so glad I stuck with it, because it is a totally fun ride, and I hope so much it is made into a series!The Danvers High School varsity hockey team stinks, so they make a pact with evil forces (hidden in a notebook with Emilio Estevez on the cover) to become winners. Eventually, they decide they have to do some "bad" things (whatever that means to each of them) to continue winning, so they write these down and stick them in the notebook too.I loved the '80s references in the book. I had a great friend who sported "the claw," bangs sticking straight up from the forehead, so I could picture Jen's hair clear as day. Someone who lost her virginity took "the Nestea plunge." I just loved it. I actually looked up the lyrics of "Every Rose Has a Thorn," and had a little singing session. The book made me high with delight.There were a couple of things I didn't like. The author has the characters talk about things before they're explained. So for pages I thought someone had glued a rosary into Emilio when it was a rose stem. And there were a few times when the claw and a growth on someone's neck were talking and I didn't know who was talking or if these things were talking. So sometimes the book was vague. But overall, I loved it. Weird and awesome.

The idea of this book is great. Teenage girls hockey players turn to ridiculous witchcraft and keep all their spells in an Emilio Esteves notebook. However, it lacked a main character and instead jumped from girl to girl which made it confusing. Also many times I found myself skipping whole irrelevant paragraphs out of boredom.Trigger warning- some dubious consent with sexual situations occur.

We read this for book club and some thought it was hard to keep track of who was who. That is a bit true, so this book might be best read on vacation so one has fewer distractions. It is well written and made me laugh out loud several times. The story is very creative. II would happily recommend this book to anyone. It touches on real life issues which I liked, but as I said ... Very funny.

This book was a really fun read in a really interesting format and I just got to say that I really enjoyed reading it it wasn’t one that made me think too hard it wasn’t one that I felt like I need to sit with or discuss with people it’s just nice easy breezy enjoyable entertaining feel good read

This was on of the most amusing stories i have ever read. Loved The Claw.

This book is so much fun! Gleeful, unpredictable, and full of truth and nostalgia. Not just true for the 80's; my Alaska bookclub resonated the sisterhood and team spirit to every decade. I wish every girl could discover early that breaking the rules can help you find your authentic self. Quan Barry, good job! Comedy is hard to write but you put your heart in this one.

Große Liebe für dieses Buch! Eine super campy Geschichte, die in den 80ern spielt. Ein Mädchen-Field-Hockey-Team verlebt eine Spielsaison, dabei passieren typische Teenager-Dinge, aber auch allerlei Unerklärliches.Die Erzählperspektive in der Kollektiv-Form ist super interessant, und mir hat es sehr gut gefallen, dass wir im Laufe des Buches die Backstory jedes Team-Mitglieds erfahren haben. Obwohl es manchmal um etwas düstere Ereignisse geht, ist der Erzählton sehr humorvoll und leicht.Ich glaube, wenn man My Best Friend's Exorcism mochte und/oder den Film Jennifer's Body, ist man hier genau richtig.

I don’t really know how to describe this but it gets all the stars. From the cover to all of the contents, was just perfect for me. If you like a book, set in the late 80s, based around an American female field hockey team, living in the original Salem, who use witchcraft to improve their game then this book is for you.